Changes in "The Hood"

Metro Atlanta is not as wooded as it was when I moved here. As land is developed, the forests disappear. However, here in our suburb, we find ourselves in a sylvan setting. The house possesses a practical and pleasant windowed addition to the back, which we call “the sun porch”. During the winter, when very little tree greenery is present, the sun porch is sunny during most of the daytime hours. But, for the green portion of the year, the sunniest moments occur in early morning and late afternoon. The back of the house is shaded by trees, most certainly so by a huge white oak that is a focus of the back yard.
One concern we both shared was our interest in growing vegetables in a garden. We acquired this house in the dead of winter, and didn’t fully realize that the shade would be so spectacular as to make gardening impossible for lack of direct sunlight. If there weren’t neighborhood covenants barring vegetable gardening in the front yard, we would have had the soil turned over and well-seeded with our favorite vegetables that first summer we were here. We have had to make do with agricultural output limited to what we can grow in pots on the back deck, which receives a modest, but almost amount of direct sunshine. Herbs, tomatoes, and peppers are what we can maintain with some success. I might experiment with broccoli or some other vegetable that hits peak in middle or late autumn.
He and I took a trip to New Orleans at the end of October in 2004. He had never visited, I hadn’t been in years, and Halloween is a great time to visit that part of the country. Warm days, but cool nights, is what one can enjoy along the gulf coast at the beginning of November. Also, the celebration of Halloween rivals that of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras week, except that you experience only one-tenth the crowds down in the French Quarter. Upon our return from the Gulf Coast holiday, we found a sidewalk in front of our house, compliments of taxpayers and sidewalk builders contracted by the County. Since that time, it is a common occurrence now to watch all manner of neighbors enjoying walking or jogging up and down our suburban road. Mothers wheel their toddlers in strollers at any time during daylight hours. It is well-worth the money to see the sidewalk used, and used by young and old alike.
Prior to this time, there was not a sidewalk that extended the length of our road. One invited an element of risk by walking or jogging along the side of the road, because it also serves as a short-cut artery during morning and evening commuter hours. Even though “speed bumps” were in place when we moved in, the volume of traffic barely tapered off, according to one of our neighbors - - all that happened was slowing the commuters’ vehicles. Since we moved in, the traffic volume remains high, but the presence of the sidewalk adds an element of pedestrian safety. Few parts of this neighborhood are blessed with sidewalks. And, for me, having come from intown neighborhoods, I accept sidewalks as a necessity, or at least a normal part of life.
When the neighborhood was laid out, then first inhabited, back in the 1960’s, most of the new residents were local people who previously lived in the city of Atlanta, or who hailed from nearby small towns. In recent years, the demographics began slowly changing. In 1969, the neighbors would have considered it unthinkable to have blacks, Asians, or people from the Indian subcontinent living here. But, that is what is occurring. Minority groups are represented. As far as I know, we are the token gay couple on the street. We’ve only been here two full years, but we know of only one other such couple, and those men are not within yelling distance; they own a house down at the other end of the road. Two doors down, on the right, is a black American family, and another house down from there is black man, who lives alone. And, in the house immediately to his right is a family who might be of Indo-Paki origins. My guess is that they are Egyptian, but that is my belief based only on their lack of attention to lawn care - - Egyptians are poor at yard upkeep, what’s this? I might explain that in another chapter.

Leading up to a Suburban Existence: Part II

The 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was the most right and correct reason to focus on relocating back to Atlanta. My business opportunities in Macon were drying up, and the Olympics promised so much more. I was on the Internet by 1995, and through the use of search engines, I found a destination management service that I felt was worthy of my services. In my years in Macon, my career had changed to something more tourism-oriented. In Macon, I was working five days per week for the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau, or the Macon CVB. My duties included leading tours for the Bureau’s tour service. The rest of the work involved serving as information specialist at the two welcome centers. This experience served to get my resume read and seriously considered by Atlanta Destinations, the small private company who hired me. It was all part-time work, but it became plentiful enough to begin considering leaving Macon.
My new home in Atlanta was an apartment, close to the Emory University campus, where I settled in 1997. Many years before, this area would have been considered the country; but before I moved to Georgia in 1980, it was suburban Atlanta. However, the suburbs had expanded so far out beyond Atlanta’s beltway (I-285), that my new address was considered to be “intown Atlanta”. I acquiesced, and considered myself to be an intown resident.
By 2002, I was spending a lot of time with an intense friend, whom we shall call Hal. We considered the possibility of moving in together. Neither Hal’s nor my domicile would allow a comfortable lifestyle for two people. So, we began looking at houses. And, the intown neighborhoods were full of houses for sale - - none, however, were in out price range. So, we looked eastward, in Dekalb County. We looked at several; a few beyond I-285 looked fine, and certainly were affordable. Commuting distance to work however, made us frown. We settled on a house in the area once known as Rehoboth. On the maps, Rehoboth is still denoted. Most people my age and younger have never heard of such a place. Our next-door neighbor, who had lived in this neighborhood since it was subdivided in the mid-1960’s, told us that the community was organized a long time ago, and that it was known as Pea Ridge before being renamed Rehoboth in the 1930’s.
We agreed on the house in Rehoboth, though I still miss my “intown” apartment. I am a reluctant suburbanite, for I do not feel that “intown” essence by living out here. This is definitely a suburban setting. Most of the streets do not possess sidewalks. Most of the neighbors drive to reach any destination. Public transport access nearby strikes the balance (good for me because I work downtown, a place where I do not care to drive), and the biking distance is a long haul. The neighbors across the street haven’t been downtown in 15 years. They admitted to moving here to get away from the central core of Atlanta, and they are still of a belief that this neighborhood is blessedly suburban.
This is as far out into Suburbia as I wish to move. The old saying “Never say Never” does ring quite true. I could be wrong. Perhaps my companion and I will find a house farther out from here. Perhaps a career shift would make such a move more sensible. But for now, we are both committed to staying where we are, and await “intown” to move its unofficial demarcations to our neighborhood.

Leading up to a Suburban Existence

I became a suburbanite near the middle of my middle age. I planned never for this change to occur. For most of my adult life, I was an “intown” person. Back in Hometown, New York (w-a-a-a-a-y upstate), I grew up in a house on Main Street. We had a view of open pastures from our backyard, although my father’s house was right there in the village. Today, the view is much as it was, 30 years after my departure from Hometown. Fondly do I remember looking from my bedroom window onto that pastoral vista. This fondness was especially strong in my teen years, when I spent over a week during one of those short northern summers, with my canvas, easel and paints, rendering an oil painting of that landscape.

In spite of my rural wanderlust, I was still an intown sort of guy. Yes, we had this bucolic country view on the other side of the hedgerow, but I grew up only two blocks from downtown. In my choice to move away from home for my college years, I chose a school that was in a small town in western New York. My dormitory looked west, onto the idyllic farmlands of the Genesee River valley. Yet, behind me, lay the walkway to take me to the village of Geneseo. It was a small town, complete with a Main Street, but with many more sidewalk attractions than we had back in Hometown. The storefronts were entrances for submarine sandwich shops, pizzerias, record and book shops, and other requisite intown comforts. These were mere student-frequented businesses, for the most part, but I was well on my way to adapting to an urban lifestyle.

After my four years of university life, I joined the Peace Corps and moved to the West African nation of Ghana. My training was in a somewhat suburban school setting, but comfortably located within the city limits of Cape Coast. My final assignment plunked me smack-dab in the port city of Takoradi. The city had all the hustle and bustle, traffic, and commerce of a North American port city. The mystique of living in a busy seaport was heightened by the presence of sailors, seamen, and other attached port-related workers.

Following my return from Africa, I sought to begin my career in one of a handful of cities in New York State. In Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, and New York itself, my search for my desired career proved fruitless. The era will be less fondly remembered for its double-digit inflation than it will for it being the years when a toothy man from Georgia was the President of the United States.

Perhaps city life was not my destiny, as I answered a call to seek work in the oil fields of West Texas. A couple of my friends from Geneseo- - former students who had dropped out - - relocated to that region to earn their fortunes while working in the oil patch. I set off on a Greyhound trip across America to reach the sun-scorched plains west of Abilene. Population centers of any size were few and far between out in those parts.

The city that would be home for my next two years was Odessa. By reasonable standards, the town was big; its population was around 120,000. The development where I resided those first few months, with my college friends, certainly had all appearances of being suburban, but we were right inside Odessa’s city limits. We shared a ranch-style rental home on a street named Redbud. Nearby streets also bore names of trees, but few of the actual trees were ever to be found in the arid community.

When the boys chose to relocate back to New York, I opted to stay behind in Odessa. After all, I was gainfully employed by this time. So, as they packed up and moved out, I found an intown apartment that was closer to my job downtown, where I worked at the county hospital.

Near the end of these two years, I had developed some powerful enemies, who previously were powerful friends. Through some fault of my own, these once-kind souls decided to make threats, which made my life miserable. There were only a few people in whom I could confide. One member of this party threatened to have someone loyal to her do great harm to me. During this period, I earned the trust and sympathy of a fairy godmother, who had the means to spirit me far away, until the dust settled. I truly believed that I should follow the advice of my fairy godmother, and head back east.

And, so, spirited away was I. One day’s travels took me to Georgia, where for a couple months I lived with a foster family (of sorts) in a once-rural section of Forsyth County, roughly 30 miles northeast of Atlanta. Tranquility was a blessing for me as I lived there and surely much more peace for me, far-removed from my Texan unhappiness. At the time, across the road from my temporary home was one of the last dairy farms in that area. The rustic surroundings were just what I needed to take my mind off what I had left behind in Texas.

The issue of paramount importance was finding work and a new home in Atlanta. My sponsors also helped me relocate to midtown Atlanta, where I rented a one-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood less than thirty blocks northeast of downtown. The move there made it much easier to find my way to job interviews. Shortly thereafter, I began a 6-year career at Atlanta’s famed Emory University. I continued living “intown”, without a car. I relyed on my bicycle and the public transport system, MARTA, to get me to work and back home. At that time, I could barely conceive the onerous responsibilities of owning my own car. I remained carless for a long time.

I changed apartments three times thereafter, but I always remained within Atlanta’s city limits. Even after I purchased my own car, I wasn’t going to rely on it to get me to work every day. But, I did come to depend on the car, when, in 1988, I moved to Macon, about 85 miles southeast of Atlanta. Because the public transport was quite lacking in that area, I definitely needed a car. The house I moved into was on the shortest street in the city of Macon, with barely enough room for my own car, let alone my guests’ cars. But, my new home was so close to my workplace that I was able to ride my bike over there easily. If I allowed myself enough time, I could walk to work . . . less than two miles. I moved to one more house in Macon, and it was on a very busy street, located on a bus route. By that time, my career had changed, such that I could actually take the bus to my occasional work downtown.

The 1996 Summer Olympic Games were in preparation during my final years in Macon. As the Games’ beginnings approached, I was in search of opportunities to draw me back to Atlanta, and away from Macon. I’ll save those thoughts for my next posting.